Wildlife Promise » Tennesseehttp://blog.nwf.org
The National Wildlife Federation's blogTue, 31 Mar 2015 15:26:11 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.2South Woodlawn Becomes First NWF Community Wildlife Habitat in Tennesseehttp://blog.nwf.org/2014/04/south-woodlawn-becomes-first-nwf-community-wildlife-habitat-in-tennessee/
http://blog.nwf.org/2014/04/south-woodlawn-becomes-first-nwf-community-wildlife-habitat-in-tennessee/#commentsTue, 15 Apr 2014 15:39:26 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=94387Read more >]]>The City of Knoxville, Tennessee, has a mounting reputation for being a top destination for outdoor recreation. Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians Mountains, it’s just about 45 minutes from Smokey Mountain National Park and the Appalachian Trail.

But to think of Knoxville as simply a “jumping off point” would be shortsighted. Through the work of the city, the county, elected officials and community-based organizations, there are amazing green initiatives everywhere you look.

I traveled to Knoxville this weekend to celebrate yet another green milestone for the city. The neighborhood of South Woodlawn, about 2 miles South of Knoxville, became the 1st Certified National Wildlife Federation Community Wildlife Habitat in Knoxville and the 1st in the entire state of Tennessee (75th in the nation).

This weekend, the team celebrated their communities’ accomplishment at Stanley’s Greenhouses, a 78 year old neighborhood institution and small business where many families purchased their native plants for their backyard habitats.

Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero Speaks to the South Knoxville Crowd at Stanley’s Greenhouse

Many distinguished guests congratulated the South Woodlawn Team Leaders and spoke to the many benefits the program brought for the community and for wildlife. These guests included: Mayor Madeline Rogero, City of Knoxville Mayor; Tim Burchett, Knox County Mayor; Nick Pavlis, Vice Mayor & 1st District Council Representative; Cameron Mitchell, Tennessee Wildlife Federation. Mayor Rogero even brought a jar of organic honey from her very own backyard beehive as a door prize for the crowd.

After the event, the team leaders from South Woodlawn took my colleagues with the Tennessee Wildlife Federation and me on a tour of the neighborhood. It’s was 80 degrees, sunny, and everything was in bloom. We got to see many of the more than 50+ homes, schools, businesses, parks and places of worship that they certified in the last several months.

And not surprisingly, we saw wildlife everywhere, especially the birds, butterflies and small mammals. It’s not a surprise because research shows that the steps people take to certify their properties with NWF – (provide food, water, shelter and places to raise young) – work. More wildlife are showing up in certified properties. It was evident in South Woodlawn.

South Doyle Middle School NWF Schoolyard Habitat & Amphitheater

The highlight of our tour was the new outdoor classroom that was certified as NWF Schoolyard Habitat at South Doyle Middle School. The Community Wildlife Habitat team successfully wrote a $30,000 grant and hired a local contractor who helped match that grant with contributions from local businesses. In the end, they restored a stream bed, replanted native plants, created a learning environment for the students and built a small amphitheater for students to learn outdoors. Amazing!

At the end of the day, the NWF Community Wildlife Habitat program has brought the South Woodlawn community together in new ways that they didn’t expect when they started. The project at South Doyle Middle schools was not in the original plans. And now they are getting calls from other neighborhoods in Knoxville, interested in learning more. Maybe this will catch on in other Knoxville neighborhoods and communities? Perhaps the entire city will want to take on the challenge?

Smokey the Bear on the job...but not for long, if one member of Congress gets his way (Wikimedia Commons)

You read that title right. Smokey (along with Woodsy Owl) is part of the U.S. Forest Service’s suite of programs aimed at advancing conservation education among American students and the public at large.

This week, that’s being targeted for elimination as part of the House Republicans’ YouCut program, led by Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN).

YouCut, a year-old attempt by Majority Leader Eric Cantor and colleagues to cut government programs as selected by public internet voting, designates the Forest Service ‘green school’ curricula as an example of “issue-oriented advocacy” that is “inappropriate” for public funding. This is at a time when Republican and Democrat governors nationwide have opted in to the U.S. Green Ribbon Schools Award Program. Odd, no?

Aside from the idea that teaching kids about the world and their impact on it (and helping their schools save money through energy efficiency measures to boot) is “inappropriate,” here’s the funny part: the drive to defund Smokey’s family is being led by a Congressman from a state that has suffered 1,126 wildfires claiming about 12,875 acres of land so far in 2011 alone (PDF). Maybe he’d like the Great Smoky Mountains to more aptly live up to their name (they and Cherokee National Forest both happen to be highly forested and subject to significant fires).

The U.S. Forest Service’s conservation education programs include efforts to get kids outdoors, healthy and connecting with the natural world. Do we really want to say farewell to Smokey Bear at a time in our nation’s history where kids spend less time outdoors than any generation in human history?

Take Action to Save Smokey

If the conservation education program ‘wins’ the vote and the cuts are eventually enacted by Congress, the “Starve Smokey” effort would likely completely eliminate the (already cash-strapped) Conservation Education office at USFS.

If you think Congress should leave Smokey alone and recognize the importance of conservation education,sign the Twitter petition in defense of Smokey or post the following on your Facebook wall:

Dear U.S. Representative @Scott DesJarlais: Please keep Smokey the Bear and his family off the federal budget chopping block. He’s not to blame for the budget problems our country faces today.

The Mississippi River is experiencing its second “500-year flood” since 1993. That’s no freak occurrence – it’s a result of man-made carbon pollution changing our climate.

“All extreme weather events are now subject to human influence,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, a climate & water scientist and president of the Pacific Institute, at a Capitol Hill briefing on Monday organized by the American Meteorological Society. “We are loading the dice and painting higher numbers on them.”

The Mississippi River, the largest U.S. river system, is forecast to crest today in Memphis, Tennessee, just below its 74-year-old record, as a bulge of water moves south toward the riverside refineries in Louisiana.

The river is forecast to reach 48 feet in Memphis at 7 p.m., compared with the old mark of 48.7 feet, according to a revised National Weather Service forecast. [...]

The Mississippi threatens 3,075 buildings, including 949 homes and 12 apartment complexes, in Tennessee’s Shelby County, which includes Memphis, the Memphis/Shelby County Emergency Management Agency said yesterday. Exxon Mobil Corp. shut its Memphis fuel terminal on April 29, Kevin Allexon, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail.

Flooding like the Mississippi River is seeing in 2011 used to be considered extremely unusual. But thanks to the climate crisis, floods are becoming more frequent and more severe over much of the Mississippi River basin – so much so that the old way of measuring things is tragically outdated:

Problems with the [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] probabilities are exemplified by recent flooding at Hannibal, Missouri. The record stage set in 1993 exceeded the calculated 500-year level, whereas 2008 was a 200-year event. In addition, 2001 suffered a 50- to 100-year flood, 1986 and 1996 experienced 25- to 50-year floods, and five more years had 10-to 25-year floods. Are these calculated recurrence intervals reasonable, or is it more likely that the dice, in effect, are loaded?

Dr. Gleick told the AMS briefing that increasing temperatures aren’t necessarily leading to more frequent rainfall events. But the climate crisis IS leading to more intense rainfall events. We’re seeing the same number of storms, but the ones we do see are more likely to be the kind that cause severe flooding.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, that’s pushing our flood control system to the breaking point:

The heavy strains on the system and concerns that floods are getting more frequent and damaging are sparking a re-examination of flood control. In years past, the call likely would have gone out for higher levees and more so-called gray infrastructure—concrete and cement structures to keep the Mississippi inside its banks. Now some flood experts, along with some states, are saying that trying to control the river won’t do the job.

What can we do instead? Take advantage of ecosystems that absorb water instead of deflecting it downstream:

A study by the state of Illinois found that fully exploiting the water-absorption capacity of one such tract near Peoria would reduce flooding in the city by a few inches and affect flood levels as many as 80 miles downstream, [the Nature Conservancy's Michael] Reuter said.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2011/05/climate-crisis-fueling-historic-mississippi-river-flooding/feed/8Interview at Lightning 100 in Nashvillehttp://blog.nwf.org/2009/10/interview-at-lightning-100-in-nashville/
http://blog.nwf.org/2009/10/interview-at-lightning-100-in-nashville/#commentsTue, 13 Oct 2009 00:37:26 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/nwfview/2009/10/12/interview-at-lightning-100-in-nashville/Read more >]]> I was interviewed today by Lightning 100 WRLT in Nashville in advance of my book presentation and signing at Lipscomb University Tuesday at 7 pm.

Lipscomb understands that students across the country want action on energy and climate change.

I’m looking forward to spending time tomorrow with Dodd Galbraith, Executive Director of Lipscomb’s Institute for Sustainable Practice who is helping to show what the path to our clean energy economy looks like.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2009/10/interview-at-lightning-100-in-nashville/feed/0Outdoor Kids: A “Child’s Eye” Viewhttp://blog.nwf.org/2009/08/outdoor-kids-a-%e2%80%9cchild%e2%80%99s-eye%e2%80%9d-view/
http://blog.nwf.org/2009/08/outdoor-kids-a-%e2%80%9cchild%e2%80%99s-eye%e2%80%9d-view/#commentsThu, 27 Aug 2009 21:12:39 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/wildlifepromise/?p=2741Read more >]]>Recently, I had the urge to try something new outside. My boys, ages 5 and 7, had finished formal summer camp experiences and it was the week that I had planned to take them on a reprise of a cross-country RV trip. Last year, my best friend and I took our kids (she had two year-old triplets at the time) on our first trip in a RV. Over six days, we traveled from Virginia to Colorado, celebrating every milestone and laughing at every mishap.

Given our schedules and the expense, our RV trip did not happen this summer, but I didn’t want that to cancel all possibilities of making a similar memory. In reflecting on what was so special about our RV trip, it was my sense of independence in navigating something new with my kids outside. My favorite day of that trip was coming across a swimming lake while taking a detour to Mousetail State Park in Tennessee for a picnic.

Searching online for swimming lakes, I came across several options. My original plan was for two nights camping at a state park nearly four hours away. Given that it was my first camping trip alone and that I would take my newly adopted dog with us, I was happy when I found an option just two and a half hours away. On http://www.swimmingholes.info, I found swimming holes tagged “family friendly” and one in particular whose description also included a recommendation for a swim lake campground that would make a perfect one-night trip.

Packing the car took all morning, but I found that taking my time ensured I packed what I needed. Of course I had the staples: a tent, sleeping bags, water shoes, swimsuits, bug spray, sunscreen, life vests, and lots of towels. In addition, each boy had their own lunch box with snacks and drinks for the car, and I put all supplies for each meal in their own large zip lock–utensils, paper plates, and napkins too. Given I was the only adult, packing each meal separately meant that I could grab the hot dogs in the dark and even the sandwiches the next day in the car calmly and with ease (both of which happened!).

The swimming hole was the experience I always imagined it to be and more. There were other families enjoying the crisp, cool water and teenagers and adults flying from a rope swing into the natural pool. For smaller kids and those like me into trying it out for the first time, we still got to jump from a rock into shallower water, and had fun discovering tadpoles and salamanders.

We left the swimming hole after about an hour and drove into the U.S. Forest Service campground just before sunset. The boys helped me set up the tent, and then we purchased firewood and ice cream from a small store nearby before heading to the swim lake. We were just in time to get in for a dip and watch the sun slowly set over the water. High above, bats started to appear for their meal at dusk as we headed back to camp for ours.

My first camping trip alone with the boys was definitely all new for me. But with a little preparation, we had everything we needed. And with my help, my sons also got to have a new experience and a memory with their mom that will last a lifetime.

Rebecca P. Cohen is Founder and President of Rebecca Plants LLC, is a gardening and outdoor lifestyle company that inspires families to be outside and improve their well being. For her weekly online video series, “Get Out of the House” as well as Starla J. King’s guest blog series “Savoring Summer,” visit http://www.rebeccaplants.com.